Shriekstone Read online

  The loonboss would have preferred to fling open the gates, but then the stunties would know it was a trap.

  ‘Why ’aven’t dey trotted out big guns?’ Krudgit scratched behind one floppy ear, nodding at the huge, silent siege cannons silhouetted in the twilight – far larger than the airship guns.

  ‘S’like I said.’ Ratgob glanced back at the mob of sneaks crouched in the darkness of the secret tunnel. ‘Shriekstone used to be a nasty, burny place – one good blast might get the magma flowin’, melt all dat gold the stunties are afta. Dey gots to be real careful.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Spookfinger took a sip from a questionable-looking bottle, smacking his lips loudly.

  Ratgob hissed the shaman to silence. It was unlikely anyone would hear them over the gunfire, but fyreslayers had a way with stone, a sensitivity to tips and taps echoing through the rock. It was only a matter of time until the invaders found the secret tunnels; best to use them first. Leading to the lower plateau, the tunnels would let Ratgob’s lads slip behind the stunty camp. All they needed to do was stay quiet until nightfall.

  As if to mock Ratgob, Ghur’s hateful sun dawdled on the horizon. Even at dusk, the brightness was almost too much to bear, but Ratgob made himself look. The fyreslayer camp was a riot of activity. The stunties were digging in for a siege, throwing up walls with contemptuous ease. Teams of red-bearded brutes levered great boulders into place, while others filled the gaps with unmortared stone. Great tents stood near where Ratgob’s tunnel let out, a seemingly endless train of wagons unloaded barrels and crates.

  After an eternity, the light faded. And still Ratgob waited.

  The scheme was to strike before the stunties had fully dug in, the lads charging while Ratgob’s sneaks spiked the fyreslayers’ supplies. Ratgob figured on good odds something would go wrong, but was pleasantly surprised when loons burst from dozens of holes around the mountain, desperately clinging to the backs of bouncing, jabbering squigs.

  The fyreslayers reacted quickly, but there was only so much they could do to halt the hoppers’ mad charge. Ratgob clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh as he watched a squig snap the head from a bellowing stunty, its rider hurling a lit torch at a nearby powder keg. The barrel ignited with a muffled whomp, consuming the squig, its rider and a dozen stunties in a ball of red-orange flame. Caught off guard, fyreslayers fought with axe and pick, rune-etched blades flickering as they carved squig flesh.

  ‘C’mon, lads, while they’re proper muddled.’ Ratgob levered open the concealed door and slipped into the gloom, his sneaks close behind. Faces masked, their weapons blackened with soot, they crept along the shadow of the half-built wall, breaking into smaller groups as they approached the provision tents.

  A pair of axe-armed stunties stood outside the nearest tent, weapons drawn, their pained gazes focused on distant fires.

  Spookfinger leapt from the gloom, jabbering and hooting, and a plume of greasy smoke billowed from his outstretched hand to wreathe the stunties and set them coughing and retching.

  Ratgob’s moonslicer caught the first fyreslayer in the neck, and sheared through flesh before getting stuck in the stunty’s thick neck bone. The other guard turned, axe slicing down as Ratgob struggled to free his weapon.

  The axe cut Ratgob’s billowing sleeve. The stunty pulled back for another slice, but a glass vial tumbled from the dark to shatter on its bare chest. A cloud of inky fog billowed around the guard’s face. The fyreslayer took a surprised breath, pupils going wide as it glanced around, mouth hanging open.

  ‘Raiders!’ Krudgit shouted at the stunty, then gestured at the distant battle. ‘In the camp!’

  The guard blinked at him for a moment and gave a quick nod. ‘For Lachad!’

  Ratgob watched, open-mouthed, as the stunty charged off into the darkness.

  ‘Toldja, boss.’ Krudgit flashed him a jagged grin. ‘Double-strength.’

  Ratgob sucked air through his fangs, the beginnings of a scheme tickling his thoughts. ‘You gots more of dat loonmist?’

  ‘I could make more.’ The poisoner winked. ‘A lot more.’

  Ratgob nodded. ‘Good to know.’

  They slipped into the tent. The interior was filled with barrels, each stamped with the symbol of a flaming bearded skull with ‘XXXX’ etched upon its forehead.

  Spookfinger paused, frowning. ‘Dis isn’t food.’

  ‘Stunties’ll fight wivout food, dey’ll fight wivout water, dey’ll even fight wivout weapons.’ Ratgob gestured for the other sneaks to spread out, then scuttled over to pry the top off a barrel and tip a vial of fizzing liquid into the contents. ‘But wivout ale?’

  For once, Spookfinger’s nasty grin was not pointed at Ratgob.

  They moved among the barrels, the tent silent but for the sounds of creaking wood and the occasional soft giggle. By the time the sounds of distant fighting had begun to fade, they had tainted most of the beer.

  With a snarl, Ratgob gestured the sneaks out of the tent, and they skulked quickly back to the cave.

  The loonboss gnawed at his cracked lips, smiling as he closed the secret door behind them. His sneaks hadn’t killed many stunties, not directly, but, like a fine patch of fungus, a good plan needed to be cultivated.

  Ratgob had spread the spores. Now it was time to watch them grow.

  Even from the far end of Shriekstone’s great entrance hall, Ratgob could see tears of fury glitter in the runefather’s eyes. It seemed impossible, but the loonboss thought he heard a shift in the mountain’s ululating cries, a strange warbling note that sounded almost hopeful.

  ‘By Grimnir, what have those monsters done to you?’ Runefather Thunas-Grimnir kicked the twitching git from his grandaxe as he reined in his snorting magmadroth to gaze around the vast cavern.

  Led by more stunty lords on hateful, spitting magmadroths, ranks of fyreslayers poured through the shattered gates, their war chants drowning the shrieks of the fleeing gits. Many of the stunties looked unsteady on their feet, skin sheened in sickly sweat, wracked by coughs that produced small puffs of yellow spores. More than a few of the brutes seemed to be kept upright by fury alone. Even if the fyreslayers were too stubborn to die, Ratgob’s poisoned brew had done its work.

  A few of the loonier lads stopped to fire at the approaching wall of blazing steel, only to have their arrows swept aside by the raging stunties.

  ‘Now, boss?’ Spookfinger asked from the darkness behind Ratgob.

  The loonboss could almost feel the heat of the oncoming magmadroths. He squinted at the floor, judging distance as the fyreslayers charged across the hall. By the Bad Moon, there hardly seemed to be an end to them.

  Still, the lads had done a good job spreading bits of moss and loose gravel across the floor of the hall. Hopefully it would be enough to conceal the shoddy carpentry.

  As if to echo Ratgob’s thought, there came a deep crack from under the claws of the advancing magmadroths. The slats covering the squig pits might be stout enough to support the weight of fleeing gits, but a mess of charging war-beasts was much different.

  Ratgob cackled as the floor gave way, tipping Thunas-Grimnir and the other foolhardy magmadroth riders into the seething mass below. The squigs fell upon the fallen magmadroths like creatures possessed, gnawing and chomping at the flailing beasts. Caught in their charge, the front ranks of the fyreslayer host tumbled into the pit, there to disappear amidst the churning scrum of squigs.

  ‘Beware the pits!’ Thunas-Grimnir’s voice rose above the din. He hacked at the mass of maddened squigs, unable to stem the toothy tide that swept over his magmadroth, dragging the great beast down. At last, roaring like a burning troggoth, he was forced to leap from the magmadroth’s back or be enveloped by the gnashing horde.

  ‘Hearthguard to the fore!’ The runefather leapt to catch the edge of the pit, where he was quickly dragged up by the other stunties. With delight, Ratgob noted the other magmadroth riders had not been so lucky.

  A knot of pike-bearing fy
reslayers adorned with tall helmets and necklaces of animal claws pushed to the front. They took aim down into the pits, but before they could fire more than a few blasts the squigs boiled up from below, the howling, gnashing horde hopping up the scaffolds Ratgob’s lads had thrown down earlier.

  ‘By the Oathflame,’ Thunas-Grimnir bellowed as the pike-wielding stunties disappeared beneath the wave of teeth and claws. ‘Pull back, form ranks!’

  Runes flashed and axes bit into rubbery flesh as the fyreslayers fought to stem the tide. Here and there the flare of a magmapike cast crimson shadows across the gloom, but the fury of the stunties’ charge had spread them out across the hall, their endurance sapped by the poisoned ale.

  Ratgob saw a fur-cloaked fyreslayer with an enormous double-bladed axe rear from the carnage, a squig clamped onto his drooping crest. With a roar, he carved a circle of ruin, runes flashing gold amidst the sprays of crimson. Squigs piled about his feet, still biting and snapping through reflex alone. One sunk its fangs into the fyreslayer’s bare calf, and the stunty stumbled, live squigs sweeping over him.

  Ratgob turned his attention to the gates, where a cadre of stunties with flaming poleaxes and fur cloaks had formed around the runefather, runes glinting evilly as they slowly beat back the tide.

  He turned to Spookfinger. ‘Now, now!’

  The shaman raised his hands and, with a whoop fit to wake the dead, conjured a bolt of jagged, greenish lightning that blasted one of the fyreslayers from its nasty feet, beard burning, its flesh crackling with mad energy. The signal was taken up by other gits, and soon the cavern echoed with mad whoops.

  From the tunnels came a beastly clatter, the clicking of claws on stone like a rain of arrows. Hundreds of segmapedes burst into the hall in a tide of roiling chitin. Spookfinger’s loons had terrified the normally placid beasts into a wild panic.

  The stampede shook the floor of the cavern, sending tremors through the rock. Ratgob thought he might have heard an answering rumble from deeper down in the caverns, but shrugged off the concern, too excited to watch the carnage to worry about a little quiver in the mountain.

  The giant insects crashed into the stunty line, knocking even more into the pits. Ratgob had expected the stunties to flee before the stampede, but the fools stood firm even as the segmapedes crushed them by the score. Axes rose and fell, sprays of greenish ichor rising like flies from an old kill. One by one the segmapedes stumbled, their legs hacked away. Runes sparked as Runefather Thunas-Grimnir leapt upon the back of one of the giant insects and beheaded it with a single sweep of his huge axe.

  ‘Show-off.’ Ratgob’s delight soured. Fresh stunty warriors poured through the broken gate, adding their numbers to the growing ring of steel. The momentum of their furious charge broken, the squigs shattered into smaller mobs, the duardin surrounding and hacking them apart one by one.

  ‘Should I unchain the loons?’ Spookfinger asked.

  ‘Stunties can have the hall, we gots more surprises.’ Ratgob shouldered past the shaman, risking a glance back. The lads had done good. The cavern was littered with duardin bodies, with even more wedged down in the squig pits.

  Snarling, Ratgob scuttled for the tunnels, pursued by the deep rumble of stunty cheers. Let them celebrate, they would be weeping soon enough.

  Those that survived, at least.

  ‘Die, thagi filth!’ The stunty’s axe swept by close enough to ruffle Ratgob’s robes.

  The loonboss brought his moonslicer around to shriek across the sparking runes embedded in the fyreslayer’s flesh. Although the duardin bled freely from a dozen such slashes, the wounds seemed to barely slow the maddened brute.

  Another swipe from one of the stunty’s axes almost took Ratgob’s head. Eyes stinging with panicked sweat, he glanced around the tunnel. All around, terrified gits fled before the roaring fury of the fyreslayers. Bare-chested, their beards plaited with images of ferocious beasts, the stunties had come on in a wild, animalistic charge, runes flaring like a fresh blaze. It had been all Ratgob could do to convince the lads not to bolt at the mere sight of the duardin.

  ‘Show yourself, creature!’ Thunas-Grimnir’s voice boomed from around the tunnel bend. Desperately, Ratgob shoved an unfortunate git into the path of the roaring stunty. The poor lad managed a single mournful screech before the fyreslayer’s axe smashed him to the cavern floor.

  Sprinting past a rust-scabbed vent, Ratgob breathed in the damp, heavy air, feeling strength return as the spores filled his lungs. The stunties were deadly, but they moved slowly, wary of more pits and snares.

  Ratgob dodged into a side-tunnel and crawled along its twisted length, eventually spilling out into a nest of tangled pipes further ahead of the advancing duardin. Shriekstone gave voice to an echoing scream. A low vibration rippled through the mountain causing him to lose his footing. The tremors were coming more often and lasting longer, but Ratgob had bigger things to worry about than a little magma.

  ‘They’re almost to the vents.’ The loonboss stood, hands on knees as he panted. ‘Is the loonmist ready?’

  ‘S’jammed.’ Krudgit banged on a large bronze pipe, knocking loose showers of blue-green verdigris.

  ‘No time for malingerin’.’ Ratgob straightened, ignoring the poisoner’s irritated glare. The loonboss clambered from the network of pipes and further down the passage, to where a knot of lads were doing their best to restrain a dozen wild-eyed loons. Green foam dribbled from around the mad grots’ gags, the ropes creaking and bulging as they struggled to break free.

  ‘Dey comin’?’ Rankfish staggered up. The foregit looked harried, and Ratgob noticed he was sporting a fresh black eye.

  Ratgob nodded at the distant lantern flicker, broad-shouldered shadows crowding the gloom. ‘Get ’em ready.’

  Heavy chains were pressed into hands of the thrashing gits.

  ‘Now, boss?’ Rankfish asked.

  Ratgob frowned. ‘Hold.’

  He could hear the stunties clattering down the tunnel, all boots and bluster.

  Hold.

  Their bestial helms glittered in the half-light: gryphons, bears, cliff snatchers, steelcats and more, the crests casting huge, ferocious shadows on the tunnel wall. At Ratgob’s side, the foregit shifted from foot to foot, muttering.

  Hold.

  Ratgob could smell the oil on their weapons, hear the creak of harnesses, the miserable pant of stunty breathing.

  ‘Cut ’em loose!’ At Ratgob’s scream, the lads cut the loons’ bindings, sprinting away down the tunnel as the madcap-addled fanatics began to spin.

  Ratgob scrambled back into the pipes before the loons could work up speed. He crouched behind a bronze tube to watch the fun.

  The lead stunty raised a fist, the red-bearded ranks behind it grinding to a halt. Silence descended on the tunnel. The big duardin cocked its head to listen as a mad giggle echoed from the gloom. Eyes wide, he drew in breath for a bellow, already turning.

  A huge iron ball swept him aside as if he’d been made of scrap. Seeming not even to notice, the fanatic continued on into the duardin formation. Stunties tumbled through the air, bowled from their feet or crushed wetly against the tunnel wall. Those in the front shouted for a withdrawal, but the air was too full of screams and laughter. Fyreslayers threw themselves to the floor or pressed tight against the walls to avoid the spinning loons, but, in the tight confines of the tunnel, there was nowhere to go.

  A fyreslayer with a helm shaped like a snarling cave bear dived under one of the whirling chains to cut the legs from one of the loons, and the fanatic’s huge ball went ricocheting down the tunnel, crushing another half a dozen stunties before rolling to a stop.

  Further down the tunnel, a pair of duardin had become entangled in a chain. Although they struggled and swore, with each revolution the heavy chain grew tighter, until blood flowed between the links. With delight, Ratgob saw them slump and fall still before the fanatic spun off down the passage.

  But there was only so much loons could do again
st so many. Two fanatics collided, their chains crushing them into a pulpy embrace. Another rebounded from the wall and was buried in the resulting avalanche of stone. More fell to blasts of magma, or were hacked down by stunties who seemed not to care it was death to charge the spinning loons.

  Bloodied but undaunted, the surviving fyreslayers staggered to their feet. More than half their number lay spread across the tunnel floor, but the losses seemed only to make the stunties angrier.

  ‘Shank me, dey’z still comin’,’ Krudgit said. ‘An’ more from behind.’

  Ratgob glanced down the tunnel, feeling his throat tighten at the sight of faint lantern light advancing from the other direction.

  ‘We’d better bolt, boss.’ Panic threaded the poisoner’s voice.

  ‘What ’bout the pipes?’

  Krudgit gave the ancient duardin ventilation one last bang. ‘S’no use.’

  Ratgob shouldered past to peer up the corroded pipe, the clash of duardin blades sharp in his ears. This close, he could smell the musty scent of rotten fungus, hear the faint hiss as the overtaxed ventilation system tried to work air past the blockage.

  With a curse, he shoved his moonslicer into the grate. The hooked blade rasped on ancient bronze as Ratgob stretched as far as he could. He felt the moonslicer sink into something soft.

  The loonboss heard the boom of a magmapike, and a blast of hot lava splattered the stone a handspan from Ratgob’s nose. He gritted his fangs as a scalding fleck burned a line across his cheek, and scraped with all his might.

  ‘Zog dis.’ Krudgit clambered back down the hole as a scowling, bearded face appeared beyond the pipes. Ratgob kicked at it, but the stunty ignored his shattered nose to grab the loonboss’ ankle.

  With a wet slurp, the mass blocking the pipe finally gave way, deluging Ratgob and the stunty with hundreds of dead snotlings.